Dead Babies

Suffice to say that -- despite the odd ludicrous panegyric of your posted comment regarding "Dead Babies," one can only conclude that your animosity directed towards this little gem of a film is most likely due to your resemblance of one of the film's two utterly pathetic characters. "Giles"? Or are you more like "Keith"?

It's ironic to me the energy it must have taken to not only seek it out here, but its director's credits, as well as your clearly passionate opinions and suggestions -- "Avoid [it] like the plague," for a film you so revile.

I rented this movie from a Japanese video store. Because of my limited Kanji-reading skills, I took a chance because of the English cast (and, to a lesser-extent, the unusual title). Namely, Paul Bettany, who was brought to my attention to his unforgettable performance in "Gangster #1".

I played it for various English guests in an English-owned and operated youth hostel I manage in Los Angeles. With absolutely no idea what we had in store for us, we were thoroughly pleased, enjoying it from beginning to end. It successfully balanced unforgettable moments of both hilarity and horror, never an easy task and, more often than not, rarely achieved. More so, when its adapted from a popular novel.

So, what do you consider worthy? "Pulp Fiction"? Ha! Maybe something from Merchant Ivory? Do they even make films anymore? Probably not, what with the BFI producing such "rubbish" like "Dead Babies" which received by your fellow countryman (and women) well-deserved comparisons to stellar films such as "Trainspotting" and "Requiem For A Dream".

Instead of attacking everyone from the director to the British Film Industry (Regain its status?!? Lighten up, would ya?)why don't you advise what NOT to avoid. But what can one expect from someone who TRIES, and fails, to present himself as above all others by over-using his thesaurus using such "odious tosh" as "panegyric" and French phrases as "soi distant"! Who talks like this?

It would be true to say that William Marsh's directorial debut pulls no punches. In fact shock tactics are deliberately played right from the word go. One of the first shots is of the alcoholic Giles' bloody teeth falling out one by one. From here on in the audience is left with little doubt that we're in for a bumpy ride. However, we end up being bombarded with so many scenes of drugs, violence, nudity and general depravity that one soon develops an immunity.

The plot centers around one hedonistic weekend where a bunch of directionless English graduates who inhabit a country mansion, are visited by three American friends (one of whom is played by Marsh himself) bent on supplying the perfect weekend of sex and drugs. It's kind of like watching a drugged-up version of Peter's Friends. The films' sub-plot involves a net based terrorist group known as The Conceptualists, who have somehow infiltrated the proceedings. It soon becomes clear that one of the revelers is not what they seem. However any intrigue, or indeed suspense, is dulled by our lack of empathy for the characters, who are either too larger-than-life to be believable or just totally un-likeable.

Dead Babies would no doubt like to be thought of in the same tradition as other drug fueled British cult classics such as Performance, Withnail and I, and Trainspotting. However, these films were far more character driven and weren't so heavily dependent on artificial means of stimulation.

It's possible that you may see this movie on TV. Bear in mind that those two hours of your life can never be brought back. If you see it in a video store, bear in mind that you will be wasting your money AND your life.

This is a badly written, poorly paced and badly shot movie. The characters are nothing you haven't seen before, the sort of badly-characterised 'spoilt rich kid' that appear in all sorts of British movies. The plot - concerning 'internet terrorists' (has Amis been reading a lot of Lynda La Plante lately?) is nothing short of appalling.

Save for a few reasonably good performances, there is absolutely nothing to like about this film. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Having been an avid Martin Amis fan for many years I was understandably excited when this film came out. Although I never caught it at the cinema, indeed, I didn't know it existed until it was on television two or so years ago.

The most important aspects of a film adaptation are present: the characters stayed true to those in the book, no vital points were missed out and the director took the same perspective on life and the book as Amis did.

If the Marquis de Sade were to crash one of P. G. Wodehouse's house parties, the chaos might resemble the nightmarishly funny goings-on in this film. The residents of Appleseed Rectory have primed themselves both for a visit from a triad of Americans and a weekend of copious drug taking and sexual gymnastics. There's even a heifer to be slugged. But none of these variously bright and dull young things has counted on the intrusion of "dead babies". Or on the uninvited presence of a mysterious prankster named Johnny, whose sinister idea of fun makes theirs look like a game of backgammon

I fear the author of the previous review assumed that this film would be a cheap horror, as I'm sure many people have owing to the somewhat dubious title. However, the term 'dead babies' was used in the book to mean 'dreary spasms of reality', the unpleasant facts of life that invariably must be dealt with sooner or later, and thus I can use this review as a platform to ward away hammer horror fans.

Instead rent or buy this movie if you want an ingenious dark comedy with a kick. I loved it!

'Dead Babies' is perhaps of the shallowest of Martin Amis's novels: a vicious satirical attack on the smart set in 1970s London: wealthy, fashionable, drug-addled, and paranoid, it follows them through a desperate and debauched weekend. The book's tone is flippant, with the strong implication that the characters don't actually deserve any treatment more reverent; while the novel justifies its own existence through the outrageous comedy of its hyperbolic prose. But hyperbolic prose, and drug-fuelled hysteria, are two things hard to capture in film (think Terry Gilliam's disastrous adaptation of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, for example). In his film of 'Dead Babies', director William Marsh uses the imagery of the modern video game, or pop video (something by the Progidy, perhaps, although this idea is maybe brought to mind merely by the presence of a grotesque character called Keith). This technique is less anachronistic than it might seem, as the setting is also updated to the present day, but unfortunately it's also familiar, and dull, in a way that the book's original prose never was: a collection of gross-out images set to techno. In places, flashes of Amis's humour shine through, but elsewhere the film seems amateurish. Amis's novels have always had a self-awareness that allows their author to get away with excesses that would otherwise be inexcusable; but this movie lacks the faint hint of self-mockery that help redeem the book. Finally, I haven't read the book for ages, but unless my memory is playing tricks on me, the ending was somewhat different the one we get in the film, which is also excessive, but futilely stupid in a way that the original writing never was.

I remain a big fan of Martin Amis, and I suspect that some (but not all) of his other books might potentially make more successful films than this one. But the path to adaptation is strewn with peril. In the case of 'Dead Babies', something is definitely lost in translation.